weewilkie

By weewilkie

where the river meets the sea

.. and the wind was freshful of icy cool on my face when I felt my arse being prodded. I jumped and turned round to see a muzzled greyhound standing there looking sheepish.
"Sorry!!", shouted a walker -the dog's owner- a little way behind.
"Don't worry it's okay," I replied (then worried that I came across as being too delighted at being goosed).
I stood there and let them pass and be on their way. The dog lowped off down to the shoreline and scattered some oystercatchers. The sky was in such bruised consternation. A few flecks of rain found me just as the sun poked through the clouds. I gave my bum a wee rub. I was still standing where the dog had brought me to a stop.
I looked behind me and the view from where I'd walked was now lit. The sky was trying to tune in a rainbow. A herd of curlews tumbled from a far field into the air and the breakthrough sun caught the flecks of their finery, the panicky rapier of their beaks. The oystercatchers on the shoreline were squeaking like squeezy toys. Canada geese in their chinstraps were plodding daftly through the sodden grass. The dog barked and ran and skidded in the mud of the low tide. The sun had found this spectacle.
And it found Dunoon too, in the cold wind it could have been a Grecian town all whitewash and bright. It was dazzling. The rainbow just above was fading away. The curlews settled back into their field. The troubled sky knuckled up and reclaimed the sun's spotlight. Everything dimmed. The rainbow was tuned out.
Then the distant bark of the dog as it skited across the shingle. I watched it a moment until I set off again, the way I was going in the first place before it brought me to a stop. Before it prodded me and reminded me to stop and look behind me too. So off I went.
The wind in my face was freshful of icy cool...

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